Incoming Israeli Air force Chief Maj. Gen. Amikam Nurkin, 41, who took the command over from Amir Eshel at a ceremony on Monday, Aug. 14, plunges straight into the ongoing air campaigns Israel is waging covertly and continuously against Iranian, Hizballah and Islamic State targets - and not only in the Syrian and Lebanese arenas.

Israel launched an air raid against the Syrian T4 air base near Palmyra early Friday March 17, as pro-Iranian Hizballlah forces drove through Hermon to reach Israel's Golan border, Moscow held back from restraining Hizballah.

Syria threatened direct retaliation for the Israeli air raid Friday, March 17 and the interception of its anti-air missile by the Israeli Arrow before that missile could down an IAF jet or land on a populated place across the border.

The shells spilling over to Israeli Golan came from Syrian rebels – not Syrian army artillery. debkafile: The battle was initiated by the rebel Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) to open up a link between its separates forces south and north of Quneitra.

In another move to grab control of the Syrian arena, the Kremlin marked the start of the US-Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria with a push for the US to dissolve its war room in Amman that is manned also by Jordanian, Saudi, Israeli, Qatari and United Arab Emirates officers.

Iranian, Syrian and Hizballah sources are intimating that the “Syrian officer” injured on July 26 in Quneitra by Israel’s double Nimrod’ missile shot was none other than Revolutionary Guards Gen. Muhammad Resa Naghdi, head of the Basij, a pillar of the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu decided at their June 7 meeting in Moscow to deepen the military ties between the Russian and Israeli armed forces, debkafile reports exclusively from is military and intelligence sources. It was a historic decision that spells the end of the IDF’s unique relationship with the US military.

Western and Middle Eastern military sources monitoring the war in Syria, and networks monitoring Russian air force flights in the country, reported a near clash Wednesday between four Israeli F-15 fighters and two Russian Su-30 jets earlier in the day.

The highly-advanced S-400 air defense missiles will also eventually be evacuated from Syria, said high-ranking officials in Moscow on Wednesday, March 17, according to an exclusive debkafile report. But their presence for now is crucial in view of the continuing Saudi buildup of warplanes in Turkey, close to the Syrian border. The Saudi deployment in Incirlik now totals 16 warplanes.

The latest batch of “top secret” documents to be leaked to the web magazine The Intercept by fugitive former NSA advisor Edward Snowden, showing that the US had spied on Israeli air force operations for more than 18 years, is as interesting for its timing as its revelations. debkafile: It served as a Keep Out of Syria sign to Israel not to count on its air force superiority for freedom in Syria’s skies and stay out of the conflict now that the Russians and Americans had taken charge..

In his Damascus posting, Gen. Alexander Dvornikov has been given control of the twin Russian commands in Damascus and Baghdad. They function as two halves of the same war room. They are fully coordinated under a single overall commander, enabling the Russian general to stay on top of events and in control of decisions 24/7. This is a key position of enormous authority and extreme diplomatic sensitivity. The Saudis see him as major foe, while the Iranians resent Moscow’s understandings with Israel.

Syrian media reported an Israeli air force attack Sunday, Nov. 1, after two sorties Friday night against Syrian army and Hizballah bases in the Qalamoun Mountains on the Lebanese border. The IDF declined to confirm or deny these reports. Syrian sources described a large number of Israeli airplanes as bombing a Hizballah unit in the village of El Ain in northern Lebanon and the arms depot of the Syrian army’s 155th Brigade at Al-Katifa. The two targets are 70 km apart, therefore two key points along the Iranian arms supply route to Hizballah.

Russia’s deputy chief of staff, Gen. Nikolay Bogdanovsky, with a large military delegation, arrives in Israel for a two-day visit Tuesday, Oct. 6, to discuss coordination between the two militaries. However, Moscow seems to be sending Jerusalem an altogether different message: Friday, Oct. 2, the Russian Defense ministry announced the surprise deployment of Navy cruiser, the Moskva, armed with 64 advanced anti-aircraft missiles S-300 ship-to-air missiles opposite the Syrian coastal town of Latakia. debkafile: Moscow has created an effective no-fly zone over Syria, N. Israel, S. Turkey, Jordan and Cyprus.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will discuss with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sept. 21 the continued Israeli Air Force freedom of action against threats coming from Syria. This would necessitate coordination between the Russian and Israeli air commands to avoid accidental collisions between their warplanes. A deal on these lines, tacitly agreed between Washington and Moscow, enables US air strikes against ISIS. But Israel faces more complex threats derving from the Iranian and Hizballah presence in Syria, on which Putin may dig in his heels.